27 playful poems for children aged 5 and above, each one paired with a photograph taken on a wildlife expedition to the Antarctic.
In January 2025, John Bishop boarded a ship called the Sylvia Earle and sailed south. Way south. Past the Falklands, past South Georgia, all the way to the Antarctic Peninsula. Three weeks on the ice with penguins, seals, and whales for company.
He went to take photographs. He is a wildlife photographer, and this was the trip of a lifetime.
But somewhere between the icebergs and the penguin colonies, he started writing. A short piece about penguins for his granddaughter turned into a second poem, then a third, then twenty-seven. He wrote on the ship, surrounded by the animals he was photographing every day. By the time he got home, he had a book.
Some of the poems are funny. Some are about the planet we're all responsible for. Some are about what it feels like to watch a humpback whale breach ten metres from where you're standing. All of them are paired with photographs he took himself, so you can see exactly what inspired each one.
27 poems. Each one a small adventure.
Some make you laugh out loud. Some make you think about the planet. Some make you want to pack a bag and head south.
Each one is paired with one of John's own photographs from the trip, so you can see exactly what he saw when he wrote it.
(Several adults have been caught reading it when they thought nobody was looking.)
£10.99paperback
£3.50ebook
John Bishop spent 38 years teaching English. He started out training as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and went on to teach English Literature and Language at secondary schools in Cambridge and then in Seattle and Bath, UK.
When he retired, he picked up a camera, wanting to learn more about photography. He has since discovered, to his own surprise, that he is perfectly happy to spend ten hours sitting in a bird hide waiting for the right photo moment. His Instagram account has grown to over 12,000 followers (mainly bird photos) and he has won photography awards.
Recent trips to the Arctic and the Antarctic had a profound effect on him. He started writing poetry because he wanted young people to learn to love the wildlife he had seen: the penguins, seals, and birds who depend on ecosystems that most of us will never visit.
He lives in Wiltshire now and is working on his second book. Follow him on Instagram and TikTok. He posts birds, mostly. And now, poems.
Not for profit
John spent three weeks photographing penguins, seals and whales on a continent that is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. Glaciers in retreat. Krill stocks shifting. Colonies that have stood for generations suddenly forced to move. The animals in this book live on the front line of a changing climate, and most of us will never see what he saw.
So every penny of profit from Penguin Hip Hop and other Poems goes to two charities working on the ground in the places he visited.
Buy the book, fund the work. Read it, learn the place. Pass it on.
Global Penguin Society
An internationally recognised conservation organisation working to protect the world's penguin species and the coasts and oceans they depend on.
Visit website
South Georgia Heritage Trust
A Scottish charity that protects the wildlife and historic heritage of South Georgia, the sub-Antarctic island where many of the photographs in the book were taken.
Visit website
I love animals and wildlife, and I have had an amazing time reading your tremendous book. It has given me such a boost of energy to travel places and see the world just like you did. We are studying poems at school this term so I will be sharing your book with my classmates next week and hopefully they enjoy it too.
For schools
John spent 38 years in the classroom. He knows how to hold a room. He also knows that the quickest way to lose a room full of seven-year-olds is to talk over their heads, so he never does. Every session is pitched to keep them leaning in.
What a visit looks like
Who it's for
How much does it cost?
What's happened so far
Penguin Hip Hop and other Poems is stocked in the South Georgia Museum shop in Grytviken.
South Georgia is a small island in the South Atlantic, roughly 1,400 kilometres east of the Falkland Islands. It is home to around 30 people at any given time, several million penguins, and one very good museum shop.
About as close to the animals in the book as you can get without putting on a waterproof.
If you happen to be passing, pick up a copy. Otherwise, get yours here.
A handful of John's other shots from the expedition. None of these are in the book.
All photographs © John Bishop. Please don't reuse without permission.
